I am a designer and developer and content strategist. I use my experience as a magazine art director and web editor to help publishers, marketers, non-profits and self-branded individuals tell their stories in words and images. I follow all of the technologies that relate to the content business and try to identify the opportunities and pitfalls that these technologies pose. At the same time I am immersed in certain sectors through my content practice and am always looking to find connections between the worlds of neurology, economics, entertainment, travel and mobile technology. I live near the appropriately-scaled metropolis of Portland, Maine, and participate in its innovation economy (more stories at liveworkportland.org. A more complete bio and samples of my design work live at wingandko.com.

iPhone Plus Could Steal A Winning Play From The iPad Mini's Playbook, In Reverse

This week, I discussed Instapaper founder Marco Arment’s speculation about how a retina version of the iPad Mini might not be far off. Arment apparently can’t resist taking the next logical step and prognosticating on the rumored iPhone Plus (or, um, Math), Apple‘s putative entry in the nascent “phablet” category. His illustration above shows the graceful, Fibonacci-like progression that would be Apple’s mobile product line.

His logic, which reverses the calculations that Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber used to predict the screen dimensions of the iPad Mini almost four months before it was officially announced. Gruber’s basic insight was that touch screens are cut from large sheets and Apple could merely cut larger pieces of the material used to make the iPhone 3GS screens and wind up with a display with the same pixel dimensions as the original iPad, but at a smaller size. And by shrinking the screen 40%, the Mini would look sharp even if it was not, technically, retinal.

This worked on a manufacturing level, and it worked for app developers inso far as retooling apps for the Mini became optional, not mandatory. Some design-minded developers have objected to the way graphic elements are scaled on the Mini, dubbing it a “vexing viewport,” because everything that had been sized with care was all of a sudden considerably smaller.

If you flip the telescope around the other way, with the iPhone instead of the iPad, you get fewer problems. Since the Mini, “uses iPhone 3GS-density screens at iPad resolution,” Arment asks, “What if an iPhone Plus used Retina iPad screens with iPhone 5 resolution, keeping the rest of the design sized like an iPhone 5? Its 640 × 1136, 264 DPI screen would measure 4.94” diagonally.” See the image above for his rough conception of what that would look like.

There are a couple of less vexing aspects about this proposed viewport. For one, it’s just bigger, so although some apps might look a little horsey, nobody will miss the touch targets. At roughly 20% larger, it’s a far cry from the doubling up users experience when using iPhone apps on the iPad.

The other aspect is more subtle, but it has to do with Arment’s own predilictions, and those of his minimalist read-later app, Instapaper, shown on the screens here. Although the native graphics are bigger on the mockup of the Plus, the size of the text is the same, only wider. And, as you can see in the image at the top of the page, the same is true for the iPad and iPad Mini versions. The text size is adjustable, of course, but the point is that Arment’s instinct is to create a cognitively comfortable text size on each device, and not merely scale it mechanically up or down based on Apple’s manufacturing efficiencies.

I have been thinking that in terms of the rumored iPhone Mini, the scaling issue would be a reason for Apple to proceed cautiously for fear of fragmenting its mobile platform further, but Arment is suggesting a way past this impasse for the Plus. I have my own theory about what would happen if Apple introduces an iPhone Plus. This seeming offhand note that Apple played with the mini (same pixels, just 40% smaller) would become an intentional riff. (First law of rock and roll: anything done more than once begins to sound good!) But I also think that it would have a secondary effect on the design of tablet apps: just as the Plus would be a scaled up version of an iPhone 5, the full-size iPad would become the scaled up version of the Mini! In other words, finicky designers would scale their apps for the (original) iPhone view and the (Mini) iPad view and let their larger counterparts just be larger.

Considering that there are all kinds of people who will find the larger size useful (large hands, bad eyes, compromised motor control, attention deficit, both extremes of age, etc.) this move becomes not a bug but a feature. As it is, the full-sized iPad is in an awkward middle ground. In landscape mode you can display standard web pages pretty well (if you don’t mind the re-emergence of “the fold”), but in landscape mode, multi-column web pages are a challenge. By having the iPad Mini be the “canonical” tablet view, you sidestep this problem altogether and clearly separate mobile views from desktop views.

Arment’s final illustration, above, shows the other motivation behind this strategy—Samsung. The iPhone 5 and iPhone Plus fit neatly between its arch competitor’s Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II. Without adding a Plus, Apple just looks small. With the Plus, it looks like a robust alternative—smaller on purpose. As Arment writes:

First and foremost, there’s significant demand for larger-screened phones. As much as we make fun of the Galaxy Note, it sells surprisingly well, especially outside of the United States. Other large Android phones sell very well almost everywhere.

The iPhone has lost a significant number of sales by buyers either wanting a larger screen or being drawn to how much better the large screens look in stores.

Curb appeal is a big factor here. If people want bigger phones, Apple can’t afford to cede the future to Samsung or other manufacturers. But, a word of caution. Just because what Arment argues makes sense, doesn’t mean that he has any special knowledge about when and if this will really happen. The visual case is particularly compelling, though, as Arment has shown with these potential product lineups. If you do the math, a larger iPhone just seems like a plus!

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

Sometimes you have to be willing to disrupt your own business or somebody else will do it for you. For example, until the iPhone, Blackberry was doing nothing wrong, they had a huge market share and customers were generally happy. Why would they need to invent a replacement for their already successful devices? Here is a great article about father or disruption: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/14/120514fa_fact_macfarquhar

RIM failed, and will continue to fail, because they (and this will sound counterintuitive) listened to their customers. They didn’t spend their time thinking of the next BB. They wasted it doing what their customers told them to do. They wasted their time trying to be like everyone else.

Apple didn’t do that under Jobs. Apple engineers designed what they thought they’d want to buy. It didn’t matter what the stock market analysts said, and it really didn’t matter what the competition was doing.

But, that’s not the case today. Today, Apple is engaging in the Android spec war. By doing that, they’re commoditizing their products – and that’s very bad. They’re releasing more frequently, like the Android, “product a week,” cycle. That, too is wrong. Instead of, “one more (great) thing,” customers are getting tiny changes, like a new port that invalidates all of the accessories they own, and big changes that make their 5 or 6 year old device suddenly, “old.”

Apple’s product releases need to be more like they used to be – anticipatory, slow, deliberate, not pressured by external forces. That’s, quite literally, making, “love,” and not engaging in the Android bed hopping experience.

Apple’s designers need to, again, look at their work and say, “this stinks.” (though, more colorfully) How can we simplify?

You nailed it! The success of the iPad Mini ensures a 5′ +/- iPhone will be released either this year or next. Apple-inspired design, no app redevelopment, and they throw ‘one more thing in’ like stereo Dolby speakers or??? The margins on phones are simply too great, and throw in the volumes sold now and even Steve Jobs would have embraced this. A slam dunk no brainier, vs a risky low margin iTV…

It would be a logical step for Apple to fill the gap between the 4″ iPhone 5 and the 7.9″ iPad mini. But I would place my bet on it being a 5″-6″ 4:3 ratio display, with a 1024-by-768 resolution, rather than being a large iPhone.

At approximately 5″-6″ diagonally, the unit would be similar in size to popular eBook readers which also have 4:3 displays, since at that size 16:9 displays are not suited to reading books. Displays that are 4:3 are also better for reading Web pages, writing emails, etc. On the other hand 16:9 displays are more suited to watching videos. But recent surveys show that iPhones and iPads are used more hours for reading and writing, than they are for watching videos.

Samsung’s 5″+ Note 1 had a 4:3 ratio display which was a practical format for that size display, but then they switched to 16:9 for the Note 2, making it less practical for reading and writing.

Developers write iOS apps for both iPhone 5 (16:9) and the two iPad models (4:3), and resolutions have been multiples of previous ones.

It’s almost certain that the next iPad mini will have a Retina display (similar in resolution to the large iPad) due to demand and competitors’ 7″ tablets having a higher resolution. But a 5″ 4:3 device with a 1024×768 resolution would be fine enough.

Some people may say that a 4:3 display at that size would be too wide to hold up to your ear for phone calls… but people using the Samsung Not “phablet” (and the recently introduced 6″ and 7″ are phones) are more likely to use Bluetooth headsets for calls than to hold the over-sized and heavy phablets up to their ears.

A “phablet” is a combination phone + tablet, and at large sizes the iPad shape is more practical for doing most tasks.

I think some of the motivation for 16:9 vs 4:3 is the business priority to sell video content (and the advertising that goes with the free stuff) as opposed to books. Personal productivity on mobile seems to be a lower priority for Apple—but no for its users, as you point out.

I would like to see Apple continue the prior phone lines, but with upgrades, such as they do with the Mac line. The plastic cased iPhone 3 can be upgraded, and then sell as an entry level phone without appearing to make a iPhone Mini. Many people prefer the iPhone 4 as shown during the prior earning statement. How about a new version that sells for people whom prefer this small form factor. The iPhone 5 can be a middle ground size, one that will still fit in a front pocket. While a new iPhone 6 can have the large screen size mentioned above. Apple can continue with upgrades, such as the processor and camera. I do prefer Apple products as the quality exceeds the rivals, but have noted with some envy the large format phones as they substitutes as a very usable tablet. My iPhone is used much more as a computer then as a phone.

Anthony, thanks for linking my post. I agree this is pretty inevitable and while I had laid out a case for 1920 x 1080, I’m reasonably persuaded by Marco’s argument that “same resolution is fine”.

I’ll say that as a user, I just want it bigger. I don’t explicitly need more resolution or the kinds of content more resolution allows (too many tap targets isn’t really a plus). And some of the things Apple hasn’t done — why is there no number row on the keyboard on the tall screen???? — could be done now and don’t even need a bigger screen.

Please change the title of your article to read “from Android’s Playbook” …

Yes, the mini was Apple’s success, but *only* by taking a page from ANDROID’s PLAYBOOK. Android is the platform that showed that people want bigger phones, smaller tablets, biggers screens, more choices. Apple is the slow dinosaur playing “me too!” and catchup.

I was recently looking at purchasing the IPAD Mini. However, I did not because it did not have the features of the IPOD TOUCH. Primarily, a flash for the Camera. If Apple is going to make a larger phone, they might also wish to add more features to the mini making it more versatile.